Memorial Day - Some Critical Thoughts To Ponder Poem by James B. Earley

Memorial Day, we'll gather, commemorating the many who have given the ultimate sacrifice, with the expectation and hope that their contributions would be held forever sacred within the minds of current and future generations.

Venue after venue, there will be empty words disingenuously spoken. We'll hear hypocritically expressed messages of gratitude from those in esteemed positions of trust, whose continuing acts of commission or omission, menace the very future those dedicated souls envisioned. We will observe specious cultures of political divisiveness; perpetually condoned, purposely inciting the clinically ignitable - all the while in constant states of pompous denial.

Thanks to the generous benevolence of today's honorees, we have a military might far superior to that of any foreign adversary, still we stand dangerously at the precipice of internal annihilation. We view ISIS, and similar others as principal threats to American soil. Yet, discerning eyes need look no further than the explosive 'home-grown' threats, continually challenging our conceivable future. We wonder about that future, where military-style attack weapons and associated tons of ammunition languish in the hands of an anarchistic inclined, Conservative Christianity defined.....public.

This Memorial Day, as we say thanks, may we also understand that we have miserably failed those we claim to honor. Going forward, may our collective lives be expressed in a manner consistent with the portrait that our military dead should never-ever be considered.....as having died in vain.